ABSTRACT
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Antwerp and its near-neighbor Mechelen comprised a formidable complex for the production and export of paintings. Antwerp’s production capability has begun to receive renewed scholarly attention, 1 and the activity of such leading Antwerp traders in paintings as the Van Immerseel-Fourmestraux, Forchondt, and Musson-Fourmenois firms has been known about for some time. Mechelen, however, has never commanded the same interest. Several archival-based studies on aspects of the painters’ guild have appeared over the years. 2 However, the city has often been marginalized as a center of artistic production. Our aim here is to provide a quantitative basis for appreciating Mechelen as a production center of paintings and to suggest that Antwerp and Mechelen were part of a single artistic-economic complex.
